General elections were held in Japan on 18 July 1993 to elect the 511 members of the House of Representatives. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had been in power since 1955, lost their majority in the House. An eight-party coalition government was formed and headed by Morihiro Hosokawa, the leader of the Japan New Party (JNP). The election result was profoundly important to Japan's domestic and foreign affairs.
It marked the first time under the 1955 System that the ruling coalition had been defeated, being replaced by a rainbow coalition of liberals, centrists and reformists. The change in government also marked a change in generational politics and political conduct; the election was widely seen as a backlash against corruption, pork-barrel spending and an inflated bureaucracy. Proposed electoral reforms also held much influence over the election. Eleven months after the election, with the electoral reform legislation that was its raison d'être passed, the eight-party coalition collapsed. This was the last general election to use the single non-transferable vote electoral system, with the 1994 electoral reform efforts changing the system to parallel voting starting with the next election.
Background The historic results, coming after years of scandals, resulted in the LDP losing the premiership for the first time since 1955. The ultimate cause of the LDP's loss was the defection of key politicians from the party and the consequent formation of two breakaway parties.
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's dissolution of the Lower House The election was precipitated by the decision of 39 LDP members - 34 of them from the Hata-Ozawa faction of the LDP, four from the faction led by former Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe, and one from the faction led by former state minister Toshio Komoto - to vote against their own government in favor of a motion of no confidence which was put forward by the opposition in a plenary session on June 18.
This was only the second time since the formation of the LDP that a no-confidence motion had actually succeeded. In the previous occurrence in the May 1980 Lower House election, 69 LDP rebels were not present for the vote, allowing the motion to pass.
This time, all opposition parties voted in favor of the motion, and it carried 255 to 220. Eighteen LDP members’ abstention from the vote signaled their passive support for the motion, thus forcing Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa to dissolve the Lower House on the same day and announce a general election for July 18.
Pressure of political reform At the core of the no-confidence vote was the issue of political reform (seiji kaikaku). The notion of restructuring (risutora) had been extensively discussed in relation to previous “normal scandal elections” which were happening on a frequent basis (in 1976, 1983, and 1990). After the 1988 shares-for-grants Recruit scandal and the 1990 election, Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu promised political reform; however, intra-party conflict prevented him from keeping his promise. After the 1992 Sagawa scandal and the revelations concerning Shin Kanemaru’s excessiveness in illegal fundraising, Prime Minister Miyazawa again promised political reform and claimed to put anti-corruption measures at the top of his agenda, this time on national television, but failed to deliver. Shin Kanemaru (1914-1996) was an influential figure in Japanese politics; he was the "kingmaker" who exercised his real power behind the scenes and had handpicked at least four prime ministers.
The inability to enact political reform and promptly dealt with corruption issue frustrated the public and a portion of reformist LDP politicians. The faction led by former finance and agriculture minister Tsutomu Hata and political fixer Ichiro Ozawa decided that political reform was important enough and the prospect of winning the election likely enough to risk defecting from the LDP.
The three new reformist parties A total of 46 LDP defectors formed two new parties. The Hata-Ozawa faction formed the Renewal Party (JRP, Shinseito). Masayoshi Takemura, who had been elected governor of Shiga prefecture with the joint support of the LDP and several opposition parties and was then serving in the House of Representatives in the LDP, along with other nine young and “progressive” LDP members also broke away from the LDP to start the New Party Harbinger (Shinto Sakigake).
Additionally, the Japan New Party (JNP, Nihon Shinto), the oldest of the new parties, was formed in May 1992 by Morihiro Hosokawa, formerly an upper house member from the Tanaka faction and governor (1983–91) of Kumamoto prefecture.
The LDP's previous losses of parliamentary majority The LDP had previously lost its majority in the Lower House three times since 1955 (1976, 1979, and 1983) but by very slim margins. Additionally, the LDP had lost its majority in the House of Councillors, the upper house of the National Diet, for the first time in the triennial election for half the seats (36 out of 72) on July 23, 1989 (largely due to the 1988 Recruit Scandal, the introduction of the unpopular Consumption Tax, and the liberalization in the importation of foreign agricultural products), and while it later won the most votes in the 1992 election for the other half of the house, it was not enough to recover the majority.
On each of those occasions, the LDP was able to co-opt a number of independent conservative members or a minor party to form the government. In 1993, however, not enough independent members were willing to join the LDP, and most smaller parties refused to accept coalition with it. Therefore, the formation of a non-LDP coalition became possible for the first time.
Factors in the 1993 election The so-called 1955 System was characterized by a one-party dominance of the LDP and a number of other political parties in perennial opposition.
Structural factors conducive to clientelism included fiscal centralization, the pre-1994 electoral system and electoral malapportionment. Fiscal centralization provided a context for the commodification of votes for material gains. The pre-1994 electoral system (single non-transferable vote in multi-member districts) encouraged the proliferation of koenkai networks and entrenched clientelism. Electoral malapportionment was a result of the pre-1994 electoral system and encouraged politicians to appeal to segments of the population through pork barrel spending and protectionist policies. Furthermore, the recession arising from the Japanese asset price bubble bursting at the end of the 1980s and the LDP's failure to adjust severely tarnished its reputation.
1955 system
One-party dominance The one-party dominance of the LDP from 1955 to 1993 was a kind of “developmental dictatorship Japanese-style.” It was considered to be a necessity for Japan to mobilize and control all human resources with a one-party stable government and an absolute majority in parliament to achieve rapid economic growth of the 1960s. The "mid-size constituency" electoral system allowed Japan to establish a stable government. The LDP, which averaged over 40 percent of the vote in the national elections, could retain slightly more than half the seats in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. With this absolute majority of seats in the Diet, the LDP could implement consistent policies effectively, including economic ones.
The LDP was able to retain power for 38 years by changing both its political stance and political leaders according to changes in public opinion and sociopolitical context. For instance, when Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's high-handed dealing at the time of the revision of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan in 1960 resulted in the massive Anpo protests, the LDP attempted to calm public dissatisfaction by replacing him with Hayato Ikeda, who advocated the governmental slogan of “tolerance and patience” and diverted popular attention to economic affairs with his Income Doubling Plan. When people experienced serious problems arising from the rapid growth of GNP, such as pollution and international trade conflicts at the end of the reign of the Ikeda cabinet, the LDP appointed Eisaku Sato as Ikeda's successor, who advocated “stable development” instead of “rapid growth.”
Nonetheless, this lack of change of government also hindered the process of establishing political responsibility in decision-making and cases of high-profile corruption. When a policy turned out to be a failure, the LDP tried to solve the problem by removing the politician who had promoted the policy instead of examining the cause of its failure. In the case of the “Reconstruction of the Japanese Archipelago” policy, which created inflation and a money-oriented political culture, the LDP replaced Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka (considered to be a money politician) with Prime Minister Takeo Miki (well known as a clean uncorrupt politician). When the politician was replaced with another, the former was considered to have paid for what he had done, but the overarching structure which bred the wrong policy, and in this case the "triangle of common interest" or the "iron triangle," was preserved.
Furthermore, long one-party rule by the LDP caused a fierce struggle for the party presidential elections. Once a person became president of the LDP, he or she would automatically be elected prime minister of Japan, so the presidential election of the LDP meant the de facto selection of the prime minister. Consequently, factional politics inside the LDP were more important to LDP leaders than the contest among political parties, as factional leaders in the LDP had to organize a large number of followers and collect substantial political funds in order to win the LDP presidential election and maintain power.
Iron Triangle Business sector remained close in contact with the LDP, as it was the sole party which could exercise governmental power. Bureaucrats aligned with the LDP politicians’ suggestions because they barely expected a change of government. Moreover, bureaucrats supported the LDP more actively in order to become members of the Diet after retirement. Each subcommittee of the Policy Affairs Research Council (PARC) of the LDP was assigned to its appropriate government department, also known as the amakudari system. In this way the triangle of the LDP, bureaucrats, and business was established.
Factionalism The LDP was a highly fragmented, decentralized party with independent bases of power in the factions and the zoku (policy ‘tribes’) - veteran politicians who had developed expertise, experience and contacts in a specialized policy area. Large-scale clientelism manifested in individual candidates’ almost exclusive reliance on their own koenkai and their ability to gain votes independent of the party's leader and party label.
Most LDP parliamentarians had built almost unbeatable patronage machines in their areas. Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was forced to resign after revelations of his involvement in the Lockheed Scandal. After this retirement, his electoral machine in Niigata continued to be so strong that his daughter, Makiko Tanaka, was elected to the Diet in 1993 at the top of the five-member Niigata electoral district 3. As a result of this type of machine politics, Japan has produced the largest number of "hereditary" parliamentarians in the world.
Fiscal centralization